Using domain specific languages in the Building Information Modelling workflow

Abstract

The design of architecture, in practice, entails the collaboration of many disciplines each with their own set of tools and representations. Building Information Models aim to support interoperability between these disciplines. However current implementations require a lot of manual work involving translating parts from the various specialised descriptions to the common model format. Domain Specific Languages are a development from Information Technology that defines a mapping from the concepts used in one discipline to those used in another. In this paper, a workflow incorporating the movement between specialised languages and a central model is described. The central model is structured using the Industrial Foundation Classes (IFC). The motivation for elaborating on the interdisciplinary workflow is the desire to create a more iterative process without the need for the manual recreation of models. While it is difficult to have a description or language that contains all the information of all the disciplines, this research demonstrates how the IFC schema acts as a pivot not just between data sets, but also between concepts expressed in different representations thus giving from analysis to design.